27 ms·
We Chat, They Watch
- avainlakech 6y agoThankfully my intuition told me to never participate in this app.
- hardmaru 6y agoAlso a thread by Citizen Lab researcher: https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1258391908319137797 https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1258391908319137797
- ASVVVAD 6y agohttps://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1258391908319137797.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1258391908319137797.html
- bgorman 6y agoDid anyone actually think WeChat communications are secure? Do we have reason to believe iMessage and Whatsapp are more secure?
- xvector 6y agowrt iMessage, yes, it’s E2EE and the keys are not stored in iCloud if you disable iMessage backup. Granted Apple still owns the keyset gets so, eh, depends on how paranoid you wanna get.
- Aperocky 6y agoAny time others have access to your keys the only logical assumption is that they already know. Relying on goodwill is just naive
- snazz 6y agoYep. WhatsApp is better and Signal is better still, but iMessage's level of privacy and security is more than enough for someone who isn't specifically targeted by a nation-state-level actor.
- maximente 6y agoit is critical to note that you also need to disable backing up your iPhone in iCloud to defeat having your key stored in iCloud: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207428 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207428
- modeless 6y agoIt is also critical to note that everyone you communicate with needs to do this too, or Apple can still read your messages to them.
- Moodles 6y agoWhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted so the service providers themselves can't read the message content, yes, definitely. Although, technically the security guarantees are nil unless you verify safety numbers which I can guarantee almost nobody actually does.
- OrgNet 6y agoiMessage is e2e encrypted but Apple has the key... so I would not consider this e2e....
- otachack 6y agoYou also have to trust the source code, or trust a recent audit, then also make sure the build you have kept it's integrity and matches the audit build.
- Moodles 6y agoThe question was: do we have any reason to believe it's more secure than weChat? I say yes but those are all valid points.
- jdm2212 6y agoThere are degrees of security between "I personally built it from source using a compiler I personally built from source" and "Xi Jinping is CC'ed a plaintext copy of every message". The allegation here is that WeChat is basically the latter. No one makes any remotely similar claim about iMessage or WhatsApp.
- freepor 6y agoYou forgot "I personally built it from source using a compiler I personally built from source with a micro-compiler that I handcoded in assembly on a computer that I assembled from transistors myself."
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
- madeofpalk 6y agoI mean there’s a white paper on iMessage’s security, and there isn’t (i don’t think) on WeChat. WhatsApp’s encryption uses libsignal. The security qualities of iMessage and WhatsApp is known. It’s not of WeChat.
- KeepFlying 6y agoThere's a whitepaper on iMessage's security as it was at a single point in time. It may be possible to verify this on a recent build with enough effort, but the average user will never be able to make that validation. So we can't be completely secure there. More secure than WeChat? ABSA-FREAKING-LUTELY. And do I trust Apple to remain secure? Yes. I'm mostly putting this here because I've heard people talking about security guarantees without considering tweaks in the supply chain or binary deliveries. Even Signal could get breached with enough effort from Google to push new bits and bypass certificate validation. (Though practically that is not going to happen.)
- dionian 6y agoI know this is not really scientific, but: Apple's business model makes me more likely to trust them over Facebook.
- KeepFlying 6y agoSame. I'm more inclined to trust apple on privacy than most of the other big companies.
- LeoPanthera 6y agoThe white paper(s) are regularly updated, and were last published Spring 2020, so "a single point in time" is not accurate. https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web
- gbrown 6y ago1. No 2. Secure? No. More secure? Yes.
- ggus 6y agoWhatsApp backups created by the built-in backup option of the messaging client on Android are not encrypted when they are transferred to Google Drive.
- FreakyT 6y agoThis narrative of false equivalency is dangerous, IMO. WeChat has been proven to be a heavily monitored and censored network. Whatever security failings iMessage and WhatsApp have, they pale in comparison to what's in place for WeChat.
- pengaru 6y ago> This narrative of false equivalency is dangerous, IMO. What's dangerous is convincing yourself that proprietary systems won't betray your trust.
- namelosw 6y agoFor me, this narrative seems to remind people don't over trust iMessage and WhatsApp, instead of "why don't you use Wechat they are not different anyway". All the westerners I know in China don't send sensitive information through Wechat. It's just good to have a low trust stance by default.
- ColanR 6y agoI think the assumption behind your claim of false equivalency is exactly what the parent comment wanted to discuss. You say the security failings of iMessage and WhatsApp pale in comparison to WeChat; I agree with parent comment and ask - in light of PRISM etc. - on what grounds can you say we should not be just as suspicious?
- 6y ago
- Barrin92 6y agoAll the technical explanations already given aside, the fact that companies in the US can and do resist attempts to undermine cryptography (see the San Bernardino case), and that there's an actual transparent public legal system where we can all follow along. It's not perfect but compared to the pretty much unlimited control the Chinese censors have over their companies it's a hell of a lot more trustworthy.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y agoIt's really dangerous to downplay bad news with "Geez, you're surprised at this news? What a moron." It's newsworthy for badness, not for unexpectedness.
- usaar333 6y agoClever experimental set-up (tl;dr they detect whether novel content first sent between non-China accounts increases the probability of it being censored in realtime when being sent to China accounts -- and it does -- implying a censor (or perhaps a non-realtime automated system) looked at it). I'm wondering though if this is intentional or just "incompetence/laziness". WeChat itself seems self-interested in not bothering with content transmitted outside China, but perhaps it is just such a small amount of their user-base, that they never bothered setting up a "firewall".
- the_pwner224 6y ago> Facebook spies on the content that all users send each other, including Chinese (and Canadians and Europeans and Indiana and Australians and Russians...) Sure, the article discusses other sketchy stuff that wechat is doing, but FB and Twitter and Reddit et. al. are all doing similar stuff too.
- chapium 6y agoThis article concerns wechat only. Whatabout FB/Twitter/Reddit is not a concern here.
- BobbyJo 6y agoI don't trust the privacy of any of those services, but there is a huge difference between "the government can subpoena information, or do targeted sniffing if you dont encrypt anything" and "we have a cron job set up that send everything directly to a government server for the express purpose of suppressing speech" To be clear, those services are lame for being as untrustworthy as I believe they are, but let's not equate the two.
- the_pwner224 6y agoSniffing by the US government isn't that targeted. And the US does harass people who say stuff they don't like, and has a long history of doing this. Were just not executing/jailing that many of them right now.
- chance_state 6y agoPlease cite some sources of people being arrested and disappeared in the US for saying "stuff they don't like" (whoever "they" is).
- BobbyJo 6y agoIf that's the case, I've got a Facebook feed full of people they missed.
- darawk 6y ago
- dvduval 6y agoI communicate regularly with people in mainland China. For me the best policy is just don't say anything that I would be too concerned about being shared. Of course, my behavior is the same for other apps. Beyond government-level type hacking, I feel a little more safe on some of the Chinese apps, as I know they have a stronger hand in their ability to stop hackers and scammers.
- bosswipe 6y agoSelf censoring is exactly what the authoritarian regime wants you to do.
- MattGaiser 6y agoChina is 80% of the way there with this guy already.
- dvduval 6y agoWhen I get "there" what would that be like? You are funny. But you don't know me.
- MattGaiser 6y ago> For me the best policy is just don't say anything that I would be too concerned about being shared You embrace state influence in full regarding your thoughts and words.
- dvduval 6y agoI embrace that virtually anywhere I post there are going to be some repercussions of doing so. For example, here I will be downvoted if I post something that people don't like.
- dvduval 6y agoI've been studying Chinese for 6 years. I probably know a thing or two about Chinese government. But obviously you've decided what you believe I know. Good for you.
- ycombonator 6y agoAlso check Zoom while you are at it.
- shasheene 6y agoYou are being downvoted, maybe because Citizen Lab has already investigated Zoom before: https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto-a-quick-look-at-the-confidentiality-of-zoom-meetings/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/04/move-fast-roll-your-own-crypto... That report is one of the reasons why Zoom has such a poor reputation for security. The other being Zoom is largely Made In China software, so subject to the requirements of China's totalitarian government: to bolster domestic industries by stealing technology and R&D from around the world (by infiltrating companies, communication networks, computer servers and end-user devices using any software and individuals it has influence over, including hackers from Ministry of State Security and People's Liberation Army). This is achieved through direct legal requirements to co-operate with Ministry of State Security corporate espionage (via China's 2017 National Intelligence Law), and more broadly through the China's attempts to switch the allegiances of all ethnically Chinese people through the overseas political interference organization called the "United Front Work Department" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTXPxWtl8Zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTXPxWtl8Zw), and also through the Thousand Talents Plan.
- alpineidyll3 6y agoDuh?
- rukuu001 6y agoHow would this be news?
- MattGaiser 6y agoEvidence matters.
- briga 6y agoAre there articles in China talking about how Google and Facebook spy on the content that all users send each other, including Chinese?
- intro-b 6y agoConsidering how banned Google and Facebook products are in China, I'm not sure what you're getting at with this comment.
- briga 6y agoNot all Chinese people live in China. My comment might have made more sense before the post title changed. Just pointing out that American companies engage in similar sorts of surveillance and censorship that Chinese companies do, although admittedly the CCP is more heavy-handed and paternalistic in its approach.
- intro-b 6y agoI feel like the bevy of comments changing the topic to American tech/media companies every time the main parent post is China-centric is predictable and exhausting. It's rarely a new or interesting take, and mostly just derails the conversation on the original thread.
- kccqzy 6y agoThis is old news though, to most people using WeChat. For example, the same people documented similar findings last year: https://citizenlab.ca/2019/07/cant-picture-this-2-an-analysis-of-wechats-realtime-image-filtering-in-chats/ https://citizenlab.ca/2019/07/cant-picture-this-2-an-analysi... and three years ago: https://citizenlab.ca/2017/04/we-cant-chat-709-crackdown-discussions-blocked-on-weibo-and-wechat/ https://citizenlab.ca/2017/04/we-cant-chat-709-crackdown-dis...
- Lammy 6y agoSomebody says this every single time something nefarious gets revealed. Confirmation lets debate move past "whether or not it's happening".
- filereaper 6y agoPretty much given up on WhatsApp, iMessage, Facebook Messenger etc... in favor of Signal. Would like to see a similar analysis on Signal.
- searchableguy 6y agoBeen using https://getsession.org/ https://getsession.org/ I don't like how signal requires phone number.
- tedk-42 6y agoThis is common knowledge. You can't send a picture of winnie the pooh without it being scanned first and deleted over the wire before being received. People don't use WeChat to organise dissent against the government or for any kind of malicious or illegal activity. The intention is for well meaning folk to communicate and do business online.
- dannyw 6y agoImplying that dissent isn’t done by well meaning people.
- tedk-42 6y agoWorld isn't binary like you frame it to be.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- commoner 6y agoIronically, by implying that all "dissent against the government" is not done by well-meaning people, you're the one portraying the world as binary. Political dissent, including protests, demonstrations, boycotts, sit-ins, and marches, have contributed to the advancement of society on many occasions. https://books.google.com/books?id=0yvPaXt3lyoC https://books.google.com/books?id=0yvPaXt3lyoC The dissenters who galvanized these reforms were certainly well-meaning.
- defnotashton2 6y agoImplying that censorship is only used to suppress malicious or illegal activity.
- tedk-42 6y agoWorld isn't binary like you frame it to be.
- krzysiek 6y agoLooking at the comments I think that most of commenters missed an important point. It's not just that the app is tracking users, but the messages sent by any non-Chinese user help the regime censor the content for Chinese users. In other words, if you use WeChat, and you send a photo of something that happened in Hong Kong along with some text that explains it, then you actually help Chinese authorities to censor this photo in China. > Upon analysis, files deemed politically sensitive are used to invisibly train and build up WeChat’s Chinese political censorship system. Also I think it's super cool how they did the research.
- yingliu4203 6y agoMany Chinese-Americans have no choice when they need to communicate with family and friend living in China. No outside communication tools allowed in China.
- fiblye 6y agoOutside of China, we're pretty lucky that we can just register for random sites like HN with nothing more than a username and password and start talking. Every Chinese site I've ever used requires phone number or ID verification. Most of them only allow Chinese-registered phones, meaning it's absolutely impossible to communicate with Chinese people from the outside world, aside from a very small number of carefully vetted services like WeChat. But I fear the rest of the world looked at China and thought, "Wow, we should've done that a long time ago!" Accounts I registered about a decade ago now demand I confirm an email and sometimes a phone number. Email accounts I've had half my life lock me out unless I link it to my phone number and prove my identity. Some services ask for a fucking ID card scan, which prompts me to just drop the service. Some things I've used in the past only accept US phone area codes, which having left the US, means those services are now completely inaccessible to me. China says it's for state security. They're at least kind of honest that their intention is to keep the population in check and watch their every movement. The rest of the world says it's for personal security. Then another day passes and another heap of phone numbers, names, SSNs, and addresses leak and another identity is stolen.
- jijji 6y agoPeople are routinely jailed in china for sending messages on WeChat [0] [1] [2]... This has been going on almost on a daily basis since WeChat started... Did anyone think they weren't monitoring and censoring it? [0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/jailed-for-a-text-chinas-censors-are-spying-on-mobile-chat-groups-1512665007 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/jailed... [1] http://www.phayul.com/2020/03/22/42960/ http://www.phayul.com/2020/03/22/42960/ [2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/technology/china-huawei-iran-arrests.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/tech...
- thekyle 6y agoNon-amp links: [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/jailed-for-a-text-chinas-censors-are-spying-on-mobile-chat-groups-1512665007 https://www.wsj.com/articles/jailed-for-a-text-chinas-censor... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/technology/china-huawei-iran-arrests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/technology/china-huawei-i...
- markthien 6y agoFAKE NEWS
- sacks2k 6y agoIt's not just WeChat. They own stakes in many american media companies and movie production houses. They use this influence to also change our Media and push pro-Chinese propaganda to the American public.
- hyperion2010 6y agoAre you now or have you ever been funded by a corporate front for the Chinese Communist Party?
- shasheene 6y agoDon't insinuate shilling (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). If you read that comment again with more care you'll see it's not at all whataboutism (the "What about America doing xyz" type comment that tries to suggest criticism is invalid because behavior elsewhere).
- JCharante 6y agoI took it as a reference to the famous quote/question "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"
- hyperion2010 6y agoAs JCharante mentions, this statement was offered as a modernization of historical reaction to similar events, not a commentary on the parent comment. In that context the interpretation my statement basically turns on whether you believe the McCarthy was right or not and whether a similar person would be right or not today.
- shasheene 6y agoOh, I hadn't realized your question was paraphrasing a quote made famous during the 1950s
- somerandomness 6y agoI dare you to share on wechat
- yumraj 6y agoHonestly curious: knowing what everyone knows, why would any person who is not of Chinese origin, use WeChat? What's the use case?
- eloisius 6y agoTo talk to friends or family that are in China.
- yumraj 6y ago> To talk to friends or family that are in China. I'm assuming you mean of not-Chinese origin, basically expats. Yes? Are there no other options? Are no non-Chinese messengers allowed in China?
- idrios 6y agoYeah WhatsApp, Facebook, Reddit, Google Hangouts all banned in China. Pretty much anything not owned by a Chinese company, or anything that didn't go through all sorts of hoops to meet Chinese censorship criteria (and even then it's not a guarantee), is banned. Even github was banned until Chinese developers complained that it made their jobs impossible
- jimbob45 6y agoAnyone else's first reaction "What the fuck is WeChat?"? I like to think I'm pretty connected to messenger apps too since I use Signal.
- htoooth 6y agotoo young to simple. All message is under China control.
- dylan604 6y agoRegardless of what nationality an app is created under, in today's day and age, why is not just assumed that any website/app is not slurping in all of your data (usage, messages, location, wifi name, etc)? To me, all apps are guilty until proven innocent.
- duxup 6y agoWhat is the incentive for any app to do the right thing then? It seems to me that coloring all apps the same regardless means that all apps may as well just do exactly as you describe... Anyone who doesn't isn't thought of as any better...
- hannofcart 6y ago> What is the incentive for any app to do the right thing then? Presumably, doing the right thing (TM) becomes their USP?
- duxup 6y agoIt's not of much value if like the other users they just assume you're doing the wrong thing already.
- mellow2020 6y ago> Anyone who doesn't isn't thought of as any better... Not until proven innocent, no. We need hardware and software we can inspect, that's not an unattainable goal. It may seem far away, but any other direction is even worse... so I'd rather head towards a goal that is far away than into a wilderness that is just as far away, but boring and empty at best, terrible at worst.
- duxup 6y agoI feel like the assumption that everyone is guilty just puts everyone on par with the guilty so before proven innocent ... why bother? It seems like the net effect would be to just provide cover for all actual offenders making them equal with everyone.
- TechBro8615 6y agoIt’s worth noting that Facebook Messenger also intercepts and filters messages. For example, it’s impossible to send a message containing the link “joebiden.info”. On the mobile app, it will simply say “failed to send.” On desktop, it will tell you the link violates its “community standards” and cannot be shared.
- justusw 6y agoI just tried it on Facebook Messenger, and it would only work when switching to a encrypted chat (which kind of makes sense). Kind of outrageous to criticize WeChat and leave out Facebook, when it clearly wants to join the party. I realize Facebook doesn't implement the same degree of censorship as WeChat, but to be fair, I live in Japan, and even for me the joebiden.info is censored.
- MattGaiser 6y agoFacebook at least tells you, but yes, this is concerning.
- wolco 6y agoI just visited that site. The concerning thing is the site isn't spam and offers a political view with photos/videos of real moments that may reflect poorly on joe . To censor that is crossing the line into censoring valid political speech.
- casefields 6y agoExactly. Imagine Big Tech censoring a website dedicated to hosting the Trump "grab them by the pussy" tape? It would be outrageous.
- square_usual 6y agoEven the policy positions listed there are literally factual and backed with sources from CNN, NYT and government websites. There is no remotely plausible reason for that site to be blacklisted by facebook.
- FpUser 6y agoDon't you worry, the US pays in kind.
- hadtodoit 6y agoThankfully the US isn't a communist dictatorship
- TallGuyShort 6y agoCan you define the characteristics of a communist dictatorship that are relevant here? Not the economic ones per se, but the ones that make you nervous about spying and media control.
- MattGaiser 6y agoA state that is not above its own law.
- TallGuyShort 6y agoSo generally, you feel that when the executive branch exceeds it's power or circumvents checks and balances, that those responsible are prosecuted?
- MattGaiser 6y agoNo, just that there is such a concept as "exceeds its power" to the point that when they do, their decisions are not legally valid. A governor/President cannot go and throw a bunch of journalists in jail. Even if he did, the courts would let them out again. In a communist dictatorship, there is no power outside the executive.
- nyolfen 6y agoputting minorities in concentration camps and state sanctioned ip theft are probably worth considering
- ryuukk_ 6y agojust like every other NSA tools (slack, discord, facebook, snapchat etc etc etc)
- stretchwithme 6y agoOf course. This is what the CCP does. They are sucking up every piece of information they can, whether or not they can currently make use it. We ought to block any know tools that a foreign government uses to spy on our citizens. They block everything of ours and anything that offers a different point of view.
- chenzhekl 6y agoIt seems the censorship is performed on documents and images that are exchanged between users. I’m interested to know if text messages undergo such a process as well .
- apta 6y agoWhy is anyone surprised by this? We should ban chinese apps.
- fulldecent2 6y agoEvery app that does not have E2EE spies on the content that all users send each other, including Americans.
- rollschild 6y agoBetween me and my girlfriend we use Signal. But for talking to anyone else I have no choice but use WeChat. I just either don't have the power to persuade others to use a more secure app, or they just don't care, or the cost of switching to another app is too high. It's (relatively) easy to develop an alternative with no censorship and pretty secure. The hard part is to make it popular and avoid getting blocked in China.
- warmcat 6y agoNo surprise there.
- wolco 6y agoIt's a feature not a bug. It was designed this way because it makes business sense. Why are Americans using WeChat I'm not sure.
- discordance 6y agoI use it to talk to my friends based in China
- seppin 6y agoBecause it's the only way to communicate with 1/5 of the world's population?
- viridian 6y agoAbout 1/6th these days. Pedantic I know, but it's super common for people to not realize that China's population growth is nearly zero. India will likely have more people than China by 2025.
- seppin 6y agoMy rule for pointing out small inconsistencies is: "does it change the point of the argument?" My point was it's the only tool to communicate with a large part of the world, 1/5 or 1/6 is immaterial.
- __sy__ 6y agoI hate myself so much for having WeChat on my phone but there is no other way to chat with family :(
- astatine 6y agoExcellent research! I have a feeling that many governments would be wondering how to get this kind of power on their side. Envy > horror. Every administration around the world fighting for loosening e2e secured messaging protocols is basically envious of China!
- fma 6y agoSignal and telegram if you don't wanna be spied on...
- system2 6y agoHow can you trust them?
- dhab 6y agoEveryone's spying - US, China, Europe, Middle East, East. Some are lesser known to detain and try in secret courts (USA), others are known to do that rampantly (china)
- seppin 6y agoOn other countries, not on their own citizens with the intention of censoring and persecuting political crimes. Big difference.
- code_duck 6y ago"non-China-registered accounts are subject to pervasive content surveillance that was previously thought to be exclusively reserved for China-registered accounts." This is perhaps the least surprising discovery I've heard this entire year.
- kerng 6y agoI uninstalled WeChat over a year ago.
- Thowaway1841005 6y agoWhy don’t democratic countries keep WeChat off the App stores or completely block its network? A company proposing a means of communication that would subtly or not so subtly twist the communications towards authoritarianism should not stand. Why would Some Country let Tencent silently block targeted messages between two of its citizens? Blocking WeChat altogether of course warrants discussion because some people need to contact family and friends in China. But the discussion should happen if more and more non-Chinese start using WhatsApp, if anything to protect non-Chinese citizens from trouble the next time they visit China.
- Aperocky 6y agoSo the solution to the problem is to be more like the problem? Also if you actually read you’ll find that your point in the second paragraph not true. The filtering only happens with China based accounts whereas surveillance are reportedly global.
- __m 6y agoThe same democratic countries that employ or tolerate mass surveillance by the nsa? Either people don’t care enough or they don’t have the power to change it.
- arminiusreturns 6y agoI worked for a company that tried to require wechat. I refused. Never got any flak, but missed a lot of comms from the first gen Chinese immigrants in the company. I posit they use WeChat more than just to censor/spy in wechat, but rather more as an one of a set of apps that can be used to side-channel leak data about the phone/user. (Israel is also the other giant player in this arena). I don't understand any tech-savy privacy conscious person being ok with it, other than being one of those who has completely given up on privacy. There is a reason the military banned tiktok, for example. (and it's not just because I've never seen a user on tiktok not look like total base-dumbass)
- throwawaylolx 6y ago> (Israel is also the other giant player in this arena) Mind elaborating on this?
- GuiA 6y agoDo some research on the NSO Group.
- gberger 6y agoIs the company Chinese?
- orestarod 6y agoTikTok? Yes.
- dvduval 6y agoDo you think they are using AI as they observe? Is some of this AI passive? Obviously they wouldn't be able to spy on everyone, or else they would need a lot of researchers haha
- hardmaru 6y agoFrom the article, it looks like they have observed that the chat data is used for cross referencing image hashes to text, but extending it to incorporate and leverage representations learned via ML algorithms (supervised, or self-supervised) should be quite straightforward.
- jdc 6y agoThey probably use something like NarusInsight, which according to Wikipedia, can do real-time semantic analysis.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lyrachord 6y agowho in the discussion? most people who burning 5G base station, or Truscism
- Markoff 6y agoCan someone from Google please explain why is this literal spyware allowed in Play Store? And why ISPs don't block such obvious widely spread spyware?
- lolc 6y agoI'm not affiliated with any of the players. Still the reason of why Wechat is available is clear to me: Unlike many other apps that track you on the side, this one is actually needed by a large chunk of Android users. And I mean needed in the strong sense of losing family and business ties if it were removed. It's pretty much utility-level at this point. If your store doesn't have it, people will use another store. And if your phone can't use that store, people will use another phone because that one is useless to them. We should discuss how people can get better choices than Wechat. But in the end it will involve political solutions. Not just technical ones.
- Markoff 6y agostrange, when I lived in China nobody cared I can't communicate with my family abroad for business everyone is using VPN or email, do you really think people will be isntalling Chinese spyware to their phones to talk to their business partners in China?
- min2bro 6y agoI think that's true for almost all the messengers. You dont know who is spying and peeping into your chatbox. We've given so much power to social media and softwares that they are kinda driving us now. Huh!!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- turowicz 6y agoWhat a surprise...
- bottled_poe 6y agoSeems like a good opportunity for steganography to make its move
- pknerd 6y agoAll our chats, regardless of the app or country, are monitored by authorities. Not sure what is the purpose of singling out WeChat only. Can anyone enlighten me?
- throwawaylolx 6y agoOther apps don't have a policy to censor anti-government talk.
- pknerd 6y agoAre you sure?
- throwawaylolx 6y agoPlease feel free to provide examples of mainstream Western apps censoring criticisms of government.
- pknerd 6y agoFacebook? Facebook was asked US government to censor/ban political things. Twitter removed Alex Jones for Coronavirus conspiracies, examples are various.
- throwawaylolx 6y agoI believe you're right--that's not so different to what WeChat is doing.
- hyko 6y agoDuh.
- gigatexal 6y agoAs the world moves more and more to an Orwellian-dystopia things like this don’t surprise me much. In the states Google and Facebook do the same thing: data and monetizing it for better ads in a capitalistic sense vs. using it to suppress dissent and bolster government power when the PBOC does it. I am free to say vile things about political leaders (so long as I don’t flat out call for anyone’s harm) here in the west which is nice. I feel bad for my fellow nerds in mainland China that don’t have as much access to the same information and opportunities that a largely free internet affords. I hope that one day we will see a liberalizing of China in this regard.
- elongatedMusku 6y agoCensorship, where have I heard that? Twitter, YouTube etc., all of them censor and de-platform people.
- seganddr 6y agoare they censoring things like the concentration camps that China has with over a million people in them? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50511063 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50511063
- minusSeven 6y agoDo we have a website with list of all Chinese websites and apps that we can have a look and not install them ? I wonder if all this is applicable to Taiwanese companies as well or not.
- einpoklum 6y agoChinese state surveillance and state censorship is terrible. But - US', and int'l corporations' mass surveillance, and censorship, is way up there in the "degree of evil". Please encourage your tech-savvy friends to use safer applications, like Signal for messaging - not WhatsApp; and FOSS alternatives to Zoom, e.g.: https://fosspost.org/alternative-software/end-users/zoom-alternatives https://fosspost.org/alternative-software/end-users/zoom-alt... no less importantly - try to ween them off of GMail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook365 or Apple mail.
- intopieces 6y agoWhat's the problem with Apple mail?
- cosmojg 6y agoNot OP, but my guess is they don't like it because it's opaque and the developer's incentives are drifting with Apple's move to services. Oh, and they probably don't like the fact that Apple still actively collaborates with the NSA. Open source software makes it easy to sidestep these kinds of issues.
- einpoklum 6y agoNo problem if you're already have: Cc: spy_on_me@nsa.gov on all your emails. Actually, that's not good enough, since your correspondents need to have that too; plus, Apple probably monitors your interactions with the webmail interface too and that can be scrutinized to learn more about you.
- intopieces 6y agoMy threat model doesn't consider state-level actors. I presume that they'll get me one way or another. It's the advertisers I'm worried about, and Apple doesn't use this data for ads.
- deleted 6y ago
- say_it_as_it_is 6y agoThis isn't unique to WeChat. How do you think you receive free teleconferencing services from Google?
- donkeyd 6y agoPlease back this massive claim up with some evidence. If there is none, please realize that a lot of companies use G Suite and pay for these services, which might allow Google to provide them for free to individuals. I don't know for sure that this is the case, but I have seen no evidence for your 'claim' either.
- say_it_as_it_is 6y agoYou want evidence that Google provides free services in exchange for tracking and interpreting all of the content passed through its services, turning it into a multi-billion dollar enterprise?
- s1mon 6y agoThis article is somewhat out of date. Grindr was sold by its Chinese owners after some of the concerns about privacy/security. https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/06/grindr-sold-china-national-security/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/06/grindr-sold-china-national...
- greatss 6y agoWeChat/CCP is far more dangerous virus then Corona virus.
- avanti 6y agoI don't know which is worse, saying something and get jailed, or go jogging and get shot.
- ooyimusic 6y agohttps://youtu.be/rXBaRwX5BPY https://youtu.be/rXBaRwX5BPY
- teknopaul 6y agoChina bashing is not an intelligent COVID19 response. It will only encourage China to close up more.
- pwfee 6y agoThat’s not cool man